The Blacklist-This is the end
by Little-Firestar84
Summary: The Blacklist - And it comes a day, when there is only one last name on Red's list, and yet, Liz hasn't discovered yet why he choose her to play his little game of cat and mouse with...


Liz wasn't a stupid. She already knew how things were going to end, despite appearances. It didn't matter that Red was surrendering, that he had his hands up. She hadn't been a profiler that long when he asked to work with her, and their professional sort of relationship had been going on for just few months, but she knew him.

Even if he was on top of a water fall, even if she was pointing her gun at him, even if it seemed there was no way out of that, he had a plan. He had to. It was just how his mind worked.

She just looked at him, with a rage she had rarely felt in her life, and he chuckled- he dared to chuckled- like nothing was going on, like she was just a stupid little girl who knew nothing of the world.

"This night, at 11.45 pm, there will be a raid in New York City, in the Franchetti Family HQ. The evidence will lead to the Escatado cartel, and the police will fall for it, as there is bad blood between the families. But" he paused, like the master of acting that he was, had always been. "but that's not the case. A man you would define as a kingpin will do it. It's very important for me that you take him in, Lizzie, as he is the last name on my list. The most important of them all."

Liz kept pointing her gun at him, her hands trembling. She wasn't stupid, she knew the truth, and she knew what he was planning. Worst case scenario, now that Red had gotten rid –through the FBI!- of his opponents, he was going to escape. Best case scenario, now that he had gotten rid of all the people he had a vendetta against, he was going to just jump and end his miserable existence. Unlikely, but given the circumstances, Liz didn't feel like not considering it at all.

Red took a big breath, at closed eyes. Suddenly his body language changed dramatically, and the calm and controlled man she had gotten used to was no more. He seemed like a beast, a lion in a cage, and suddenly she had an idea, she guessed his real motives-or at least, part of them. "Revenge is a dish best served cold…"

Red nodded, chuckling, and in his eyes she saw he was proud of her. She still wondered why. Because he thought he was making her a better cop? Because he was proud she had improved? Because he was the father she thought lost for so long?

"I've never wanted for this life. It just happened, because someone threw me in it. And by allowing it, I lost what was dear to me." Red looked at Liz with a strange look. It was full of fascination, sorrow, regret and longing. Was it true? Was he really her father, the man who had abandoned her for a life of crime?

"Do you know why I like you so much, Lizzie? Why I asked for you? No, of course not. You think you do, but that's not the case." He paused, and he saw the shock on her face as she realized the implications of his words. "I am not your father, Lizzie, but you could very well be my daughter. She is as old as you. And she is lost to me forever because of a single mistake I did."

"So, that's it?" she asked him, getting closer and closer, the gun heavy and so, so real in her hands, she just wanted to use it, to fire a shot at that man. He had taken her, taken away her dreams, her life, and broken everything in his way just to get what he wanted. "That's why you wanted _me? _Because you've been a lousy father and you wanted to make it up to _you daughter?" _She shivered in the worst way possible, gritting her teeth as she felt like unleashing all the rage, the tension, the lies of the last few months. She could do it, right here, right now. Everything that had happened to her, to her family… it was all because of Red. If she killed him now, nobody would ever find out, and it would be the end of it. She could get her life back, her husband, the daughter they wanted together. Everything.

"Oh, Lizzie, No, even if it's rather sweet that you remind me so much of how I had once wanted my child to grew up to be." He shook again his head, he once again chuckled. Her gun was just few feet from his head, and yet, he was laughing at her. Like he was still in control. The mastermind, and the puppet in his personal show. "You see Lizzie, the man who is going against the Franchetti and the Escatado in few hours, he is the same who forced my hand when I betrayed my country, when I had to abandon my family. There was people I found despicable, but him… I used to be a good man, but he poisoned my heart with lies and false promises, he turned it black." Red closed his eyes, and took a big breath. Liz could see he was struggling. He was a man who always, always hid the truth, his real self. To tell her this, it was heart-breaking for him- _if _he still had a heart to begin with.

"Do you honestly think it's up to you? That you control the game?" Liz asked as the barrel of her gun touched his skull. "You tell me why I am here, or I kill you right here, right now, and you can forget about the last name of your damn list!"

Any other human being would have been scared of such a situation. Liz thought that Red himself would have been shaken- she had tried to kill him the first week on the job, after all – and yet, he didn't seem affected by her behavior.

"Oh well… you win some, you lose some, right?" He chuckled again, smiling of that damn bright and arrogant smile of his. She hated it. She hated him. She hated everything that her life had become-she even hated who she had become – and it was all because of this man. And now, now she was finally going to get the truth. And once learnt it… she was going to be free. She was going to return to her old job, to her husband and working to build a family with him.

"The man who will kill the Franchetti and frame Escatado… the man who turned me into this… the last name on my list…" he paused, dramatically, as Liz's hands were shaking. In such a state, she doubted she could make the shot, even at such a short distance.

Red moved past her, walking calm and relaxed towards the edge of the waterfall. He was looking down, like mesmerized, like he was craving the end, the peace. She didn't blame him, thought: Red was slowly dying, condemned to lose himself to a deadly disease that was going to take his mind first, and his body later. She understood why he wanted to end it on his own terms, and because he had chosen now.

He was going to get everything he had always wanted, after all: he was going to die with his brilliant mind still intact, everyone on his list was either dead or behind bars, his record had been erased, and his family was going to know he was a… a good man, whatever it meant for Red.

"The man I am talking about…." He said slowly, taking one last step towards the edge of the precipice. Liz couldn't get her eyes off of him, and yet she couldn't do anything to stop him. It was like she was suffering from paralysis. "…He is your father."

And as Red fell into oblivion, there was no cry, no tear, no sound from either of them. In his death, he was accompanying only by the thunderstorm of the waterfall.


End file.
